By Christi Clancy

Christi Clancy's work has appeared in The New York Times, Glimmer Train Stories, Hobart, Pleiades, BrainChild, themid.com, Wisconsin Public Radio, The Milwaukee Journal and elsewhere. She teaches English at Beloit College.

There’s a cool Portuguese expression called saudade that doesn’t have a direct translation into English. From what I understand it describes a feeling of longing for someone you miss, although it can also express nostalgia for an experience you’ve never actually had. Maybe saudade is what I’ve felt about the backpacking trip across Europe that I didn’t get around to taking after college, first because I didn’t have enough money, then because I didn’t have…